Dominating uncertainties can be either be operational 
(such as boundary conditions) and/or geometrical resulting 
from unknown properties, such as tip clearances of 
rotating compressor blades or from manufacturing 
tolerances. Whether bringing a new product from conception 
into production or operating complex plant and production 
processes, commercial success rests on careful management 
and control of risk in the face of many interacting 
uncertainties. For example a new aircraft or aero-engine 
must be designed and engineered within a given time frame 
and budget to meet a given set of performance 
requirements, and then manufactured at unit cost and rates 
that meet an overall business plan. Today’s fiercely 
competitive market and increasingly stringent regulatory 
environment is such that there is very little margin of 
error. Failure to appreciate, understand and appropriately 
manage risks inevitably results in severe financial 
penalties, and even irrevocable damage to reputation.  

Historically, chief engineers and project managers have 
estimated and managed risk using mostly human judgment 
founded upon years of experience and heritage. As the 21st 
century begins to unfold, the design and engineering of 
products as well as the control of plant and process are 
increasingly relying on computer models and simulation. 
This era of virtual design and engineering opens the 
opportunity to deal with uncertainty in a systematic 
formal way by which sensitivities to various uncertainties 
can be quantified and understood, and designs and 
processes optimized so as to be robust against such 
uncertainties. Human judgment will always play an 
important role, but leading companies in many fields of 
engineering are increasingly aware of these possibilities 
and uncertainty quantification is beginning to feature 
strongly in their strategic aspirations. Thus this is a 
very opportune moment to introduce a two- day awareness 
seminar on this emerging topic.   

The aim is to share the aspirations and requirements of 
leading companies in the fields of aerospace, energy, 
transport and chemical process; review emerging methods 
and techniques and how these are being deployed; and 
define the current state-of-the-art and map out-near term 
future possibilities.